“Emotional eating occurs when we eat in response to emotions or unmet needs rather than biological hunger,”1 Since food plays such an important role in our lives, we all emotionally eat and though diet culture tells us it’s wrong to emotionally eat, it’s very human and normal to eat when we are not hungry. Being aware and curious about your drive to eat is a BIG part of the process of intuitive eating instead of judgment for eating too much or not sticking to a “diet plan.”
Eating serves as a way to connect with others such as holidays or birthdays, gives us pleasure and joy, and lets us connect with our culture.
Intuitive eating (IE) is all about managing your emotions and thoughts you may have about yourself in relation to your food habits. You may tear yourself down for eating that dessert, or that pizza, but intuitive eating teaches us that we can incorporate those foods and still live a happy, healthy, and well-balanced life.
Intuitive eating plays a role in helping to check in with your emotions and thoughts you may have about yourself in relation to your food habits. You may tear yourself down for eating too much dessert, or that pizza, but intuitive eating can help us learn to incorporate those foods and still live a happy, healthy, and well-balanced life. “Eating as a response to strong emotions isn’t a problem in and of itself (in fact, emotional eating is considered a normal coping mechanism for intense feelings.”
Emotional Eating/Binge Eating
Everyone goes through a variety of emotions throughout their week. People have different ways to cope with these emotions, and food is a coping mechanism. Food may be used to cope with boredom, stress, anxiousness, or sadness. Food will not fix the burden you are facing, but in some instances, food really can make you feel better – think about decompressing after a tough day at work with pizza and ice cream with friends, or making your favorite comfort recipe from scratch to cheer yourself up after a long day.
Intuitive eating not only teaches us that it is normal, sustainable, and healthy to incorporate any foods we love, even if that is pizza, different salads, ice cream, etc. as part of balance; but also, how to not have the all-or-nothing mindset with food. The all-or-nothing mindset is driven by someone who sets strict rules for themselves by eliminating certain foods/food groups. These are foods they tell themselves they “cannot” eat. But this becomes a cycle that could result in binge eating episodes, as well as an overall emotional strain. When they essentially eat this “bad” food, they end up binging on that food to get it out of the way, then start fresh the next day. Intuitive eating allows us to better manage our emotions because it sets us up to have a better relationship with food. When we don’t have an all-or-nothing mindset with food or negative thoughts about certain foods/food groups, we are less likely to rely on it as our only coping mechanism.
Credit: Brittany Berendsen RD
Binge eating is different from emotional eating. People can emotionally eat and not have binge eating disorder (BED) . If you are feeling a loss of control while eating (i.e., feeling unable to stop eating when no longer hungry or wanting to eat), excessive feelings of guilt, shame, or other distressing emotions during and/or after eating, feeling physical discomfort and pushing through that discomfort to continue eating, restricting after binge eating, excessively exercising, or using laxatives these are all signs of binge eating or bulimia. In this case, seeking help from a qualified professional is warranted.
Coping Methods
In past IE editions, this principle was called Cope with Your Emotions With or Without Food. The authors realized that since food is a coping mechanism that can be used, they changed the principle to Cope with Your Emotions with Kindness. Food can provide comfort, or distract from uncomfortable emotions. As you have noticed, it doesn’t fix our problems long-term. And often, emotional eating can make you feel worse, especially if it leads to a shame spiral. We want to find kind, nurturing, and maybe even enjoyable ways to cope with heavy feelings. An example of this is a situation where you might be feeling stressed mentally from work, school, motherhood, etc.
Creating a self-care box where you pull different self-care tools depending on the situation. As you use your self-care tools, you will learn which tool is most effective. It’s OK if something isn’t working, to come back to food as a tool, and it’s also OK if you’ve started emotionally eating, to stop when you realize something else might be more effective.2
Credit: https://www.nourishedlifestyles.com/single-post/emotions-with-kindness
Soothing/calming tools:
What are some things that help you soothe or feel more grounded when you are feeling anxious?
- Deep breathing exercises – look up box breathing exercises
- Guided meditation – youtube, try free app on your phone: Insight Timer
- Snuggling with a pet or stuffed animal or using a weighted blanket
- Give yourself a hug – you can use a shawl
- Putting both feet on the ground to help with grounding
- Going barefoot and walking outside to spend a few minutes in nature
- Lay in a restorative yoga position such as child’s pose for a minute (or even a few minutes)
- Applying essential oils to your wrist or neck (grounding blend such as douglas fir or lavender for calming)
Remember it takes about 5 minutes to start feeling relaxed.
Connection with others:
Plan an outdoor activity such as kayaking, hiking, beach or pool
- Do something fun with a friend, partner, children or family. Go out to eat, invite someone over, watch a movie together.
- Text with a friend or family member
Laughter/joy tools:
- Watch a funny TV show
- Listen to a funny podcast
- Dance party – by yourself or with others
- Game night
Energizing tools:
- Go for a brisk jog or walk outside
- Toss a ball
- Swing
- Brew a cup of coffee or tea (just be mindful caffeine doesn’t interfere with sleep)
- Try citrus essential oils
- Listen to your favorite pump up song or playlist – Fergie, Kesha are some of my favorites
Food tools:
What are ways you can emotionally eat in a way that actually makes you feel better?
If you need some relaxing, pick up a takeout meal
Give yourself permission to relax in front of the TV with a bag of snack food – it’s OK to disconnect with food!
Pick up a favorite fun baked good and favorite coffee drink
Prepare your favorite meal or a recipe that is a family favorite
Processing tools:
- Journal out what’s going on
- Use a feelings wheel to check in what you are feeling (see picture below)
- Call a friend or loved one to talk through what’s going on
- Make an appointment with your therapist
- Practice a deep breathing exercise or meditation to help you sit with your emotions and feel them
- Cry or scream into a pillow
Credit: unknown https://www.lewis-lin.com/blog/2019/12/23/the-emotion-wheel
Check in your feelings – you can use a feeling wheel to get more in touch with your emotions. There are 7 core emotions and the wheel below has more adjectives to further describe how you feel. The wheel also represents a wide range of emotions we can feel.
By doing some of these activities, you give yourself the time to think about how you are feeling, and you aren’t resorting to food as your only coping method.
If you are finding a disconnect or uncomfortable in your body, reaching out to a therapist trained in trauma can help guide you along with a registered dietitian if you are struggling with food.
Using the self-care box of tools outlined above can be helpful. However if you are hungry, these tools will not work. If you are ignoring hunger/fullness cues, this will affect emotions, energy levels, and cravings.
Emotional Eating & Intuitive Eating
When you are in these situations of emotional eating, cue into if you are experiencing hunger, and any signs that you are hungry (it doesn’t always have to include a growling stomach). You may be irritable (hangry), anxious, having trouble concentrating or tired. If it’s been a few hours since you last ate, you probably just need to eat!
Intuitive eating teaches us how to identify the difference between various types of hunger, including physical hunger and emotional hunger and how to emotionally eat in a more helpful way. Check out my previous blog post that discusses different types of hunger and how to honor your hunger. Using a hunger and fullness scale is a tool to better understand and give language to the different levels of hunger and fullness so you are better able to respond to your needs. It uses a scale from 1-10, where each number correlates to a different level of hunger or fullness. Using this scale can help with being more mindful of why we are eating and how we feel before, during and after meals.
Emotional eating is not shameful or bad, being aware of how often you are emotional eating is key and having other coping strategies in your self-care box. If you are struggling with emotional eating and need some guidance, reach out to make an appointment. I am able to take major insurance plans, HSA/FSA cards, and private pay.
References
1 https://equip.health/articles/food-and-fitness/emotional-eating
2 Rachel Hartley https://www.rachaelhartleynutrition.com/blog/2017/03/self-care-toolbox-for-emotional-eating
